JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Nov. 15 (UPI) — In the past 24 hours of countrywide operations, security forces in Afghanistan have killed more than 50 militants, including 12 Taliban targeted by a drone in an eastern province, officials say.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs on Sunday released a statement saying Noor Rahman, Taliban governor of the Khogyani district in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, was killed along with 11 other militants during a “special operation.”
Outlook India quoted Ahmad Zai Abdulzai, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, as saying Rahman and his accomplices — several of whom were not Afghan — were killed in a drone strike.
The interior ministry said Rahman had been “involved in many terrorist and destructive activities” in Khogyani district and other portions of the province.
Earlier this month, security forces captured Aminuallah Kuchi, Taliban governor of the Khost, Balkh and Laghman provinces, during an operation in the Behsoud district of Nangarhar province.
Meanwhile, in the Waza Khowa district of Paktika province Sunday morning, border police killed at least 13 militants who attacked checkpoints, the ministry reported.
In an earlier statement Sunday, the interior ministry said Afghan police and military forces killed at least 18 armed insurgents and arrested another six over the past 24 hours of operations in the country’s Nangarhar, Baghlan, Kunduz, Kandahar, Oruzgan and Helmand provinces.
Another eight armed insurgents were killed during clashes with security forces Monday in the Sipira district of Khost province, Xinhua news agency quoted district governor Mohammad Azim as saying.
One day later, a suicide car bomb reportedly killed one police officer and injured 11 others — including several bystanders — as a military convoy traveled through Lashkar Gah, capital of the country’s southern Helmand province.
The Taliban, who have intensified attacks against Afghan military and police forces in recent months, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Xinhua on Sunday quoted online statements by the Taliban as saying the militants killed more than a dozen security personnel over the past two days.
